A doctor responsible for the treatment of two cystic fibrosis patients who died at Frimley Park Hospital has once more been deemed unfit to practise.

Following a tribunal hearing on Monday and Tuesday, Dr Ronald Kelvin Knight was found not to have fully accepted his failings in respect of patient Lorna Paterson of Horsell, Woking.

Lorna died in May 2008, aged 14, from complications arising from her long battle with the disease, which Dr Knight treated almost from birth.

Becky Bromfield, of Windsor, died in February 2010, aged 26, after a medical procedure performed on Dr Knight’s orders left her struggling to breathe.

Dr Knight had been found unfit to practise in February by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) and was suspended for 12 months.

The tribunal reconvened this week but chairman of the panel Jill Crawford ruled that Dr Knight, who has been suspended since February 2013, should be exiled for a further six months to further come to terms with his failings.

“Concerns remain with regards to your insight,” she said. “These concerns indicate a harmful and deep-seated attitudinal problem – the lay observer may categorise it as vanity.”

Dr Knight treated Lorna from the age of five months.

He took clinical lead in 2000 and administered her treatment exclusively until just two days before her death.

He was criticised by the panel for discharging her without examination a week before she died and then failing to see her personally when she was readmitted, leaving her care in the hands of junior staff.

He was found not to have made Ms Bromfield’s parents sufficiently aware of the details of her cystic fibrosis-induced diabetes.

Referring to evidence heard during the tribunal, Mrs Crawford said Dr Knight was ‘worryingly inconsistent’ on crucial issues, citing three explanations for his actions during the ‘terminal stages’ of both patients’ lives.

She said questions also remained around his candour, while Peter Atherton, representing the General Medical Council, added that Dr Knight’s reflective statement was trite, unimpressive, and gave no true insight into his character.

During his near 40-year tenure at Frimley Park, Dr Knight started treating cystic fibrosis patients in the 1980s and was later responsible for founding the hospital’s cystic fibrosis unit.

Representing Dr Knight, David Morris refuted the panel’s assertion he had an attitude issue and that Dr Knight was prone to giving optimistic support to patients, finding it ‘embarrassing and difficult’ when he could offer none.

Lorna’s parents, Alison and Neil, told the News & Mail this defence was a damning statement of Dr Knight’s duty of care ethos, which showed a ‘chilling lack of insight’ into his responsibilities towards a dying child.

“He put his own concerns first, second and last,” they said. “There were numerous occasions when he could have changed the dreadful trajectory of Lorna’s demise.

“Her last word to us was ‘help’ – that is what Dr Knight could have, and should have done.

“A good death is an entitlement of all terminally-ill cystic fibrosis patients.

“Lorna instead died in the most cruel way possible, experiencing many days of fear and panic, which was extremely traumatic for us to witness.”

They criticised the ‘narrow and arcane’ remit of the MPTS process, adding: “It is focused solely on a doctor’s right to be registered to practice and specifically excludes holding them to account and, or, punishing them for the suffering and harm caused.

“Doctors are still above the legal and moral framework that applies to the rest of society.”